This invention relates to a conveying system for conveying mainly articles in a factory, a warehouse or the like.
A known conveying system particularly such a conveying system utilizing electromotive carts, comprises a rail cover which covers rails for guiding the electromotive carts, electric conductor rails and other components. This cover is installed on a floor along a conveying route and has a gate-shaped section. The rails are defined inside lateral walls of the gate-shaped rail cover. According to this construction, wheels rotatable along the rails, a drive mechanism including an electric motor, an electric current collector and other devices mounted on the electromotive carts are movable within a space covered by the rail cover.
Such a known conveying system is disclosed, for example, in the U.S. Pat. No. 4,207,821.
In the known conveying system as described above, the rail cover and rail cover struts provided along mid-positions of the rail cover receive all weights acting on the rails, which weights consists of weights of the electromotive carts per se and loads carried by the carts. Therefore, the rail cover and the struts must be a very heavy construction having sufficient strength which is very costly compared with a conveying system having no such cover. In other words, this known conveying system is not suited for conveying heavy articles.
Furthermore, since the rail cover acts also as means to support the rails, it is impossible to remove only the cover at a certain selected position to do maintenance work on the rails, the electric conductor rails or the electromotive carts. The prior art construction also has the disadvantage that only a limited range of choice is available for the sectional shape of the rails supporting the electromotive carts.